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Things are coming together nicely on this project. I picked up the Hemi from Don's Machine in Kenosha WI (262-658-3737) don't ask for Don, ask for Tony, don't ask me why. And got it loaded onto a cradle. If you have to move an expensive motor don't use an old tire for a cradle but go leech one off your friends to do the job right. We plunked it into the old Ram and I drove at 35 mph all the way home. |
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Make sure when you have a motor out of the car all the ins and outs of the motor are taped off so dirt and vermin can't find their way in. If you don't think they will check ou the pictures of the grain bin a mouse made in a cylinder of the 383 in my Road Runner! We sealed all the intake and exhaust openings along with all the oils ins and outs with tape then shrunk wrapped the motor for the trip. |
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This is the first time the motor has been back in the shop in 7 months so it is kind of a homecoming. Since it survived the trip from the machine shop to my shop it is time to get it hooked up and out of the truck. |
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Since I couldn't handle it all myself the whole family pitched in and wrestled the Hemi out of the truck. Boy, they sure are heavy when you put them all together. My wife and the girls are troopers and the unloading went smoothly without any injuries or broken parts. |
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There she sits all bolted back together. The block is the original, numbers-matching piece that the car left the factory back in 1968 with. I will go more into that later. We had is cleaned and the lifter bores bushed to ensure oil supply if we launch a lifter. The bore is .70 over and filled with JE Pistons attached to Eagle H-Beam rods. The crank is from Ohio Crankshaft and the rotating mass is balanced and all held together by ARP fasteners. The cam is the Mopar restoration repop of the original Hemi cam (P/N: P4529316) and replicates the original profiles and is spun by a Cloyes double roller chain. |
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The heads are the heart of a Hemi and these are the original heads from the car that have been hot-tanked then trued, machined and treated to new seats, guides, seals and a new set of springs. Only a few of the valves needed replaced and they were not too bad but while you are in there you might as well make it all new. The original rockers were dissembled, cleaned and smoothed before being put back in the motor. A high volume Melling oil pump ensures that the big heads will get a good amount of oil. We topped off the whole shebang with the original 2x4 manifold that will receive totally rebuilt original Hemi carbs in the near future. |
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It was time to get it mounted on the engine stand and it was rated at 1000 lbs but since the big Hemi weighs in around 850 lbs, it was a little bouncy so we kept the chain hooked up for a safety measure. Time to get busy with a wire wheel and get all the old black paint somebody sprayed on it and some surface rust off. After it is all gone I will wash the block in Metal Etch to ensure the rust is gone then time to prime! |
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Some cleanup here in front then the water pump can go on before painting. After it is orange I will mount the fuel pump and harmonic balancer. The balancer is a fluid damper that I got from Bouchillon Performance along with a pulley set. Check them out in my links section if you need brackets or pulleys, as they make some very good repops. My only beef is their pulleys come with a textured powder coat that is a bitch to get off to apply the correct painted finish. |
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Numbers matching, Numbers matching, Numbers matching, what the Hell does it mean? Here is the short version of the skinny on that. (Sorry, kind of sounding like a 20's gangster there for a minute, must be all the James Cagney movies I have been watching lately) In an effort to reduce car theft, Mopar started a great VIN numbering system. The VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) is stamped on the side of the block, the side of the tranny, on the dash VIN tag, on the radiator support and under the left rear trunk lip. To say a car is “Numbers Matching” all these VIN numbers must match each other and be correct for the car. While a lot of cars lost their motors and had them replaced with Warranty Blocks from the service department, they had have no VIN stamped in them. These days there sure seems like there are more “Warranty Block” cars out there today than in the 60's. A Hemi car with a correct VIN stamped into the original block carries as much as a 30% swing in the price. Here is what mine looks like but with the sequence number blocked out. |
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After a light coat of etching primer it is looking good. A lot of people skip this step and go with the very light coat of paint only theory. I have done both and by laying down the etching primer first, the paint comes more even and gets a way better grip thus making it much more impervious to chipping. You still need to keep the coats very light and not build the paint up at all. The less the thickness of the paint the cooler the engine will run. |
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